The Gladly alternative with prices you can see

Gladly vs Aftersales: what is the short answer?

Gladly is a San Francisco customer experience platform built for large retail and consumer brands. It now sells one AI that both serves and sells to shoppers, priced on outcomes through a sales quote. Aftersales is an AI customer service platform with public per-seat prices from $0, where the AI Agent costs $0.99 only when it resolves a conversation.

• Pick Gladly if you are a large retail brand that wants a voice AI agent, an AI shopping assistant on the same customer record as service, and a vendor that prices on outcomes with a 30-day performance guarantee.
• Pick Aftersales if you want to see the price before a sales call, start free or on a small team, run support outside retail as well as inside it, and have AI take guarded actions such as Shopify replacements and Stripe refunds with spend limits you set.

Gladly's status in October 2026: Gladly has not been acquired, renamed or shut down. Its main site moved from gladly.com to gladly.ai (gladly.com now redirects there), and its October 5, 2026 press release describes it as an independent company founded in 2014 that has raised more than $200 million from investors including AXA Venture Partners, Riverwood Capital, Greylock and NEA. The same release launched "agentic commerce", which moves Gladly further toward AI that sells as well as serves.

Why do teams look for a Gladly alternative?

Most teams that compare alternatives are not unhappy with Gladly's customer timeline. They run into fit, price visibility or focus.

• No public pricing. Gladly's old pricing URL now lands on its homepage, and there is no price list. Its October 2026 press release says Gladly is "priced based on outcomes rather than seats", so you need a demo and a quote before you can model the bill.
• It is built for big retail. Gladly's site, case studies and models center on retail and consumer brands such as Nordstrom, Ulta Beauty, Crate & Barrel and HOKA. Gladly says its AI is trained on more than 450 million retail conversations. Teams in SaaS, fintech, healthcare or services may find less built for them.
• The direction is moving toward selling. Gladly's 2026 launches focus on agentic commerce: a shopping assistant, conversion and average order value. Teams that only want support resolved at the lowest cost per conversation may not need that.
• No self-serve entry point. We found no free plan or self-serve trial on gladly.ai; the main calls to action are a demo and an interactive product tour. Small and mid-size teams often want to test on real conversations first.
• Outcome pricing needs a clear definition. Pricing on outcomes can be fair, but you need to know exactly what counts as an outcome and what happens at peak season before you sign.

What should you look for in a Gladly alternative?

• A price you can model yourself. Seats, a per-resolution or per-conversation rate and any minimum, published so finance can check it.
• What counts as a billable AI outcome. Per resolution (you pay only when the AI finishes the job) is different from per conversation or per session.
• Actions, not just answers. Can the AI verify an order, trigger a replacement or issue a refund, with value limits you control?
• Context at handoff. When AI escalates, the human should see what it looked up and already tried, so the customer does not repeat themselves. Gladly is strong here; your alternative should be too.
• Quality on every conversation. Automated checks on AI and human replies, not a 2% sample.
• Channels, including phone. Decide whether you need human phone support, an AI that answers calls, or both.
• Security paperwork. SOC 2 Type II, SSO and SCIM, data residency, a BAA if you handle health data, and any card-data requirements.

How does Aftersales compare with Gladly?

The biggest differences are pricing visibility, the AI's scope (service only versus service plus selling) and voice AI. The table below sets them side by side.

Gladly checked October 2026 on gladly.ai and in Gladly press releases. Gladly does not publish prices; confirm current terms with each vendor.

When is Gladly still the better choice?

Gladly is the better pick for several kinds of team, and we would say so on a call.

• You want an AI that answers the phone. Gladly sells a voice AI agent and says it has handled more than 14 million phone conversations. Aftersales supports phone for human agents, not an AI voice agent.
• You want one AI that sells and serves. Gladly's Shopping Assistant and agentic commerce launch put product discovery, add-to-cart and service on one customer record. Aftersales is built for service, not product recommendations.
• You are a large retail brand with a long customer history. Gladly's lifelong conversation timeline and People Match routing (VIP, sentiment and dedicated-agent routing) are designed for brands that treat support as a relationship over years.
• You need PCI DSS. Gladly's security page lists PCI DSS alongside SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA. Aftersales does not claim PCI DSS.
• You want the vendor to carry performance risk. Gladly says it guarantees its AI will beat your current AI on conversion, resolution and CSAT within 30 days or you pay nothing, with no implementation fees.
• Your retail stack is deep. Gladly's integrations directory lists retail apps such as Klaviyo, Loop, Recharge, AfterShip, Corso and BigCommerce. Aftersales connects Shopify, Stripe and Salesforce directly and other systems through its API or webhooks, so confirm specific connectors on a call.

Is Aftersales cheaper than Gladly?

We can't give a like-for-like number, because Gladly does not publish prices. What we can do is show what Aftersales costs at list price for common team shapes, so you can hold it against a Gladly quote. All examples use annual billing.

Aftersales list prices, October 2026. Add-ons such as Copilot ($29 per rep per month annual) are extra. Conversations Agent can't help with cost nothing.

When you get a Gladly quote, ask for it in the same unit: total monthly cost at your real volume, at peak month volume and at a lower AI share. Ask what counts as an outcome, whether voice and the Shopping Assistant are priced separately, and what the minimum term is. Then compare cost per conversation, not headline price. Our resolution rate guide explains why the AI share moves the total more than anything else, and Aftersales pricing lets you model your own numbers.

What do Gladly teams get with Aftersales?

• Agent that acts within limits. Describe a procedure in plain language (or import a macro) and Agent turns it into steps, each mapped to a connector with explicit, revocable permissions and spend limits. It escalates on sentiment, keywords, customer tier or legal language, and hands over with the data it looked up and what it already tried. Median resolution after 90 days is 71%.
• One Inbox for email, chat, WhatsApp, SMS, phone, social DMs and Slack Connect, with views, SLAs, side conversations in Slack and company metadata as filters.
• Insights that spot issues in real time and run Monitors on every conversation. Helio Energy raised quality scores by 14 points after Monitors replaced sampling.
• Copilot drafts replies that cite their sources, summarizes and translates in 31 languages, including right-to-left scripts.
• Ecommerce actions. Northwind Outdoors, a DTC outdoor brand, resolved 68% of post-purchase conversations in 30 days and cut cost per conversation by 41%. See Aftersales for ecommerce and AI customer service for retail.
• Beyond retail. The same platform serves SaaS and fintech teams, with SSO and SCIM on Scale and a BAA on the Enterprise plan.

How do you switch from Gladly to Aftersales?

1. Check your contract dates. Note your Gladly renewal date, notice period and any outcome commitments so you can plan the overlap.
2. List channels and numbers. Record every email address, chat widget, SMS and phone number, WhatsApp or social account connected to Gladly, and who owns each with your carrier or Meta.
3. Export customer history. Use Gladly's API or ask Gladly support for customer profiles and conversation history. Keep exports for your retention policy.
4. Move knowledge first. Bring your Answers content and macros into Knowledge so Agent, Copilot and your help center work from one source.
5. Rewrite your top flows as procedures. Take the 10 most common conversation types (order status, returns, exchanges, address changes) and describe each outcome, the data Agent needs and its limits.
6. Connect systems. Shopify, Stripe, Salesforce, Slack and Jira connect directly; your OMS, loyalty or returns tools connect through the Aftersales API or webhooks.
7. Run in parallel, then cut over. Start Agent on email and chat, review transcripts and Monitors, then move SMS and phone. On Growth and Scale the Aftersales team runs the migration with you; most teams finish in an afternoon.

If you also run Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud or Freshdesk, Agent can run inside it with no seats and no migration, at $0.99 per resolution with a minimum monthly commitment.

What other Gladly alternatives should you consider?

If Gladly is close but not right, compare Kustomer for another customer-centered CRM helpdesk, Zendesk for large ticketing operations, Gorgias for Shopify stores, and Sierra or Decagon for enterprise AI agents. Our comparison of Gladly vs Zendesk and the list of the best AI agents for ecommerce support go deeper, and every option is on the alternatives hub.

Frequently asked questions